I'll have to read more on the subject when I get time. I was hoping some one with a more medical background would be able to explain how well this would work. Further on in the paper it says how insulin can be administered in this method and adjust blood sugar levels.

My degree is in mechanical engineering, I was only reading about this because of how they are made. When I saw EPO and HGH mentioned I thought it was interesting, I'd never read about microneedles on here and was basically hoping for further explanation by a more medically minded person.

Edit: From what I gather, they aren't as effective as injecting with a hypodermic needle, but far more effective than taking anything orally or directly onto the skin. they are "large enough to deliver almost any drug or small particle formulation"

Is blood doping probably still the status quo? Or micro dosing EPO instead? For blood doping... how much recovery time after withdrawing blood is needed to build up a good blood supply for the season? Can the blood be stored for many months?

^ I don't think its either or but both and when it comes to (microdose) epo and blood transfusions. The transfusion cycle basically requires epo to be effective under a heavy training load.

Refrigerated red cells endure ca four weeks. After that they need to be reinfused. Frozen they can last longer, but some loss of rbcs is expected using this method. It is also more expensive.

As a separate observation..... Watched several editions of amstel and fleche during the week on YouTube from 1999 on. It is quite astonishing how markedly the anthropometry of the riders and the top contenders in particular changes over the years. To wit, they become a lot thinner. This is not something new of course, but the change becomes very pronounced when the footage from 20 or so years is compressed like so. One illustrative example would be the disappearance of riders with body types like bettini from the finales of hilly classics. Another is comparing say valverde from 2005 to the current version.

meat puppet wrote:^ I don't think its either or but both and when it comes to (microdose) epo and blood transfusions. The transfusion cycle basically requires epo to be effective under a heavy training load.

Refrigerated red cells endure ca four weeks. After that they need to be reinfused. Frozen they can last longer, but some loss of rbcs is expected using this method. It is also more expensive.

As a separate observation..... Watched several editions of amstel and fleche during the week on YouTube from 1999 on. It is quite astonishing how markedly the anthropometry of the riders and the top contenders in particular changes over the years. To wit, they become a lot thinner. This is not something new of course, but the change becomes very pronounced when the footage from 20 or so years is compressed like so. One illustrative example would be the disappearance of riders with body types like bettini from the finales of hilly classics. Another is comparing say valverde from 2005 to the current version.

Surely they are more "professional" these days.

this is why Gerrans was so effective in these decimated sprints like Amstel in the past 6 years, he did not do the lipotropin weightloss, he had all the muscle at his ~66ish kgs, 14lbs give or take at 5'7".

He went from getting his doors blown off by Valverde and Gilbert, to beating them. This off-season, he looked about ~4 lbs leaner, I reckon that is not smart, this route will hurt his terminal velocity. Matthews also lost the weight the last years, then he could hang on the hilly classics, but still get his doors blown off now by Sagan and Van Avermaet.

Remember, Michael Matthews won a bunch sprint at Vuelta, was effective at bunch kicks, placing top 5 in Giro and Vuelta, but does not have the terminal velocity of perennial second place finisher in the bunch kicks Peter Sagan.

The thing about the weight losss, it is a page from Princeton mathematician John Nash' Game Theory which won him the nobel prize in economic. <think> triangulation, compare yourself to all of your competitors, as individuals, and their individual strengths. Gerro maintaining his terminal velocity but managing to hang on the hilly classics, meant he had the finishing speed to win. When before, he had speed, and was competitive in the decimated sprints, but would not be able to beat someone like Valverde, or a Bartoli, or a Rebellin. But then when everyone loses the weight, and does not have the muscle for the explosiveness in the last 5 kms, Gerro starts to win. But he lost a couple of lbs this off-season, but my eye's visual perception.

the lipotropin and the liquid rectal nutrition diet of Team Sky that Race Radio told us about, that means the last ~3lbs, you lean up even more.

This is more than just clen and corticosteroids.

It is a combination of that, but mostly lipotropin, AICAR, GW, and the rectal liquid nutrition inserted straight into the lower intestine. That means the final pounds.

Don't know where else to put this, but this is definitely a blast from the past.

My dad was doing some spring cleaning recently, he found an ancient front page of the local newspaper sports section, he had saved it because one of his kayaking buddies was the main story. The paper is from July 2000, prior to the Sydney Olympics, also featured on the front page is Armstrong and Virenque. The title of the article is "French hero Virenque has his day in the sun". Ha-ha!

Unfortunately the article was continued on another page, which my dad didn't save, but at least in the front section it talks about how Virenque beat Armstrong on a climb on the 16th stage of the Tour.

Anyhoo, what a blast from the past, how naive the press and the general public were back then! (Even I was when it came to track and field, other articles in the paper mention Michael Johnson, Maurice Greene, Dan O'Brien, Regina Jacobs - think I'll save the paper just because it gives me such warm, fuzzy and innocent memories.)

Remember Lance used to come to the dauphine and ride half-baked, we found out later via Tyler that was because they had just off-loaded BB for TDF so there is a kind of performance drag on that. Remember Cadel and Nibs at the dauphine and then wow at the TDF. I am thinking about the recent dauphine and a couple of Riders who seem half baked.

AC seems really half-baked, may have off-loaded a massive BB dump. hey, one last go right?Froome seems 3/4 baked, is that a small dump because of watchful eyes on Sky? Besides I think Sky has a different program, not sure its BB because their riders have won the dauphine and then won the TDFPorte knows the sky program, does not look like a dump from him.Fulsang and Aru coming alive at the dauphine? I wonder with Vino, he demands success but they couldn't have stored, unless they did it earlier.I do wonder about Quintana and no show between now and dauphine, store? but with the impact from Giro, must have stored something fresh earlier.

The device, called Ember, is made by California-based Cercacor Laboratories and tracks hemoglobin and other biomarkers. It was launched last year at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this is the fist time a full pro cycling team, LottoNL–Jumbo, is using the device at the sport's highest level.

The device, called Ember, is made by California-based Cercacor Laboratories and tracks hemoglobin and other biomarkers. It was launched last year at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this is the fist time a full pro cycling team, LottoNL–Jumbo, is using the device at the sport's highest level.

sounds to me like they are using it to monitor blood doping.

"a blood-testing technology that almost instantly tells riders how their bodies are reacting to training and racing, and it could change how the world's best bike racers prepare for target events."

Melbourne Cup winning jockey Michelle Payne was on Thursday suspended for one month after she was found guilty of taking a banned substance earlier this month.

Payne, who pleaded guilty, told stewards: "I am embarrassed and I apologise for what I have done."

Racing Victoria stewards, after hearing evidence from Payne who was represented by lawyer Michael Rivette, handed down the one-month suspension which will begin immediately.

Stewards told Payne they had received results of a urine sample given by the jockey at the Swan Hill Cup meeting on June 11. They explained that the substance Phentermine, an appetite suppressant, was detected.

"Are you going to believe me or what you see with your own eyes?"

“It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

Very interesting article about Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier and his involvement on a TV program about Dr. Mabuse, which ultimately led to the deterioration of his relations with FDJ and to have difficulty in finding a new team.

blackcat wrote:this is why Gerrans was so effective in these decimated sprints like Amstel in the past 6 years, he did not do the lipotropin weightloss, he had all the muscle at his ~66ish kgs, 14lbs give or take at 5'7".

He went from getting his doors blown off by Valverde and Gilbert, to beating them. This off-season, he looked about ~4 lbs leaner, I reckon that is not smart, this route will hurt his terminal velocity. Matthews also lost the weight the last years, then he could hang on the hilly classics, but still get his doors blown off now by Sagan and Van Avermaet.

Remember, Michael Matthews won a bunch sprint at Vuelta, was effective at bunch kicks, placing top 5 in Giro and Vuelta, but does not have the terminal velocity of perennial second place finisher in the bunch kicks Peter Sagan.

The FIM International Jury suspends Russian rider Grigorii Laguta from the Monster Energy FIM Speedway World Cup following the PZM’s decision to provisionally suspend him from all racing in Poland due to a violation of the Doping Code.

"Are you going to believe me or what you see with your own eyes?"

“It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

Here's an interesting article by Leo Konig, he touched on doping in it and says that with current countermeasures PEDs in pro peloton can bring you 3 to 5 percent performance bump.http://www.bezfrazi.cz/drz-hubu-a-jezdi/